The Possibilities for the Identification and Evaluation of Tourism Sector Competitiveness Factors

Valentinas Navickas, Asta Malakauskaite

Abstract

Tourism is one of the most important and most rapidlygrowing economy sectors, which faces the challenges andpossibilities of globalization. Historically, tourism marketshave been national and regional, that is, isolated from oneanother. However, in the last decades the boundariesbetween national businesses tend to disappear. Generaltrend of growing income enables individuals and familiesto travel longer distances. An increase in the quality oftourist products and services, innovations in the field oftransport and communications, ingenious measures oftourism marketing, and other factors also significantlycontribute to the development of global tourism. Thecompetitiveness of tourist destinations becomes increasinglyimportant to countries that intend to control a large shareof rapidly growing tourism market. That is particularlyrelevant to the tourism-dependant countries, which heavilyrely on the situation in tourism and travel industry. Thecompetitiveness of tourism sector encloses many factors,such as natural environment (geographic location, climate,scenery, etc.), artificial environment (tourism infrastructure,transport, supply of leisure and entertainment services,retail stores, hotel network,Villa rental), and globalization of markets.The identification and evaluation of tourism competitivenessfactors is a pretty common research problem of manyscientific studies and articles dedicated to tourismeconomics. As tourism markets grow, and the concept oftourism evolves (holiday tourism, tourism of the physicallydisabled, ecological tourism, conference tourism, politicaltourism, etc.), the aforementioned research problemsbecome more significant. The object of this study is theidentification and evaluation of tourism competitivenessfactors. The aim of this study: to identify and evaluate thefactors of tourism competitiveness with the use of a systematicapproach and renewed version of Competitiveness Monitor(CM) method, adapted for the analysis of modern needs oftourism market.The following scientific research methods wereapplied in the study: the systematical and logical analysisof scientific literature, and synthesis. The study carried outby the authors of this article proposes that thecompetitiveness of tourism sector significantly adds to theeconomic development. Some countries are not rich innatural resources or highly developed industry sectors.Such countries tend to concentrate their efforts on thedevelopment of tourism industry and services. Variouscompetitiveness factors of tourism sector are analyzed inscientific literature. They are related to market conditions,the level of social development, environmental policy, thebase of human resources, the quality of infrastructure,technological advancement, and other fields of development.The degree of development strongly correlates withcompetitiveness of tourist destinations. Competitive touristdestinations offer a wider range of tourist products; attractpotential visitors with the help of their exceptional image (forinstance, natural scenery, clean lakes, advancedenvironmental policy are a perfect niche for ecologicaltourism and environment-friendly country image); andprovide services of a particularly high quality.